Sustainable Tourism in Repulse Bay, Hong Kong

Hong Kong has many attractive places to visit, such as Ocean Park, the Peak Tram and Victoria Peak, the Hong Kong Space Museum, the Hong Kong Heritage Museum, the Aberdeen fish market and promenade, as well as local seaside communities like Stanley and Repulse Bay. A popular day trip from Hong Kong is Macao, which can be reached with a fast ferry. But besides visiting tourist attractions the visitors also do shopping and dining. 

 

The largest single category of visitors to Hong Kong are tour groups from Mainland China. This category of visitors has grown very fast over the past ten years, and the Government expects this to continue. The forecast of the total number of visitors in 2017, both from the Mainland and elsewhere, is 70 million. 

 

The problem is that the capacity of Hong Kong to receive this fast increasing number of tourists has not grown enough. For instance, the metro and bus system has become very overcrowded in peak hours, roads have become congested with tour busses that stop for sight-seeing, and some consumer goods (especially food and foodstuff) have been sold out because mainland visitors do not trust the safety of some products back home. An example is baby formula, for which there was such a demand from tourists and traders that Hong Kong residents could not find it in the shops. The Government solved this by limiting the maximum quantity of baby formula that a tourist can export. Another problem is that Hong Kong residents complain about the different social habits of visiting Mainland tourists, for instance when queing for buses and taxis. Last year there were a few small demonstrations in which local residents protested against the problems of tourism in Hong Kong which they blamed especially on Mainland tourists. They even called the tourists from the Mainland by some very ugly names.

 

According to the strategic development commission, by 2017, Hong Kong will have around 70 million tourists arriving. The government says that in general Hong Kong will be able to receive this number of visitors in 2017, however, Hong Kong must continue to create more hotel rooms. The government argues that growth of tourism will create more jobs in hotels, shops, public transport, etc. To make that possible, in its tourism development strategy, the Hong Kong Government is adopting a three-pronged approach including: 1. The continuous enhancement of Hong Kong's capacity to receive tourists. 2. Developing specialised tourism clusters to attract high value-added visitor segments to visit Hong Kong. 3. Strengthening promotion of tourist attractions in different districts to alleviate congestion at traditionally popular tourist areas, with a view to facilitating the long term and stable development of our tourist industry.